Murder in the Bastille

Saturday

LOÏC BELLAN TRUDGED UP the wide steps, arguing into his cell phone. “No one’s there. The boat’s shut. Can’t the examining magistrate speed up the search permit?”

“All in good time, Bellan,” said the flic at the other end. “Keep your phone on.”

Along the quai, at the end of a row of plane trees, stood a small café. Grass carpeted the slope up to boulevard de la Bastille. Bellan took a seat on the terrace, ordered a café. No booze, he promised himself.

And he watched the navy blue péniche. He’d had worse stakeouts than this. The sun beat on his face, a fountain gurgled behind him, and the soft lap of wavelets against the hulls lulled him. The roar of Bastille lay right behind him, but one would never know it.

He’d brought his girls here once. When a very pregnant Marie had a doctor’s appointment and she’d begged him to take the afternoon off. A pang of regret hit him. Why hadn’t he done that more often? He’d taken his girls to the science museum at Porte de Villette, then for a slow canal ride all the way here. They’d loved it. So had he.

“Monsieur, monsieur!”

Bellan blinked his eyes. He must have dozed in the sun. No one was there. Or at the boat.

“Monsieur!”

He looked around. A small boy stood partly behind a tree, pointing to Bellan’s feet, where a soccer ball lay.

“Please throw it, monsieur,” said the boy. “We’ll get in trouble if we bother café patrons but . . .”

Bellan lifted the ball, stood and stretched, then walked over to the tree. Three young boys, the oldest no more than 10 years of age, a little bande from the quartier, eyed him.

“Whose ball?”

“Mine,” said a red-faced, tow-headed boy.

“Bon, I need some help,” said Bellan, sending the ball over the grass with a fancy kick. “You boys know about the boats, about the people who live on them?”

They stared. The red-faced boy caught the ball.

“Ever see anyone go onto that dark blue péniche?”

They shook their heads in unison.

“André, Marc, Charles! Lunch!”

Good Catholic names.

“Can’t you boys help me?”

They backed away.

“Ask Bidi, he’s bigger than us. The shop at number 22,” said the red-faced boy.

Then they ran past the trees.

He must be losing his edge. After he paid for the coffee, he walked past the hedge and trees.

Number 22, boulevard de la Bastille was a nineteenth-century apartment building. There was a grocery under a striped awning at street level. Bins of bright green peppers, leeks, zucchini, endive spears, and melons lined the façade. From the doorway, Bellan sniffed the detergent smell of a freshly mopped floor.

“Attention, monsieur, it’s still a bit wet. May I get something for you?” said a bald older man, wiping his hands on his apron, from behind the cash register.

“Bidi, may I speak with him, please?”

“Of course, he’s in the back,” the man said and smiled. “Bidi!”

Bellan noticed the narrow shop’s crammed shelves. Crammed but neat. Organized. Every available space filled: boxes of pasta, flour, tins of cocoa, vacuum packed coffee, biscuits, chocolate or butter, rice, Nutella, and jars of jam and tomato sauces, boxes of brown sugar, slim flaçons of Provençal olive oil and tarragon vinegar, tins of packed sardines and plastic shrink-wrapped eight-packs of bottled mineral water and Orangina. The small refrigerated section was crowded with milk, yogurt, packaged meat and cheeses: goat, sheep, cow, hard, soft, or semi-soft.

This little miracle of convenience was usually known as the arabe—because corner shops open late and on weekends, were usually run by North Africans. They existed all over Paris.

“Alors,” said the man. “He gets involved in his work, that boy. Bidi!”

Down the aisle, Bellan saw the back of a young man on his knees, stacking cartons of sea salt. His head bobbed; he wore headphones. Bellan tapped him on the shoulder.

“Pardon.”

He turned around and Bellan stiffened in surprise.

A smiling Down syndrome-afflicted boy looked up at him.

“Bidi?”

“Ouai?” he said.

Bellan caught his disappointment before he blurted something he’d regret. What could he get out of this boy? A big fat nothing.

“I’m sorry, I thought you might help me, but you’re busy,” said Bellan, hoping to make a tactful exit.

“Are you shouting because of my headphones?” Bidi said, his words slow but clear. “I took them off. See.” He pointed to them around his neck. “I can hear you.”

Had he been shouting? Bellan’s next words caught in his throat. “I . . . I . . . some children said you might know something.”

Bidi got to his feet, dusted off his knees. “Ouai,” he said, nodding his head. He had oval close-set eyes, a small mouth, and freckles. “They told me. Said you looked like a serious man.”

Bellan felt perspiration beading his brow. Was it that hot? He opened the top button of his shirt.

“You scared André,” Bidi said. “But André’s scared a lot.”

“Do I scare you?”

Bidi grinned. “Non. I like your shirt. My brother has one just the same.”

“Merci.” Bellan shifted on his feet. Marie had picked the shirt out at Printemps for his birthday.

“The boys said you want to know about the boat. The blue one.”

“Why yes, actually I wondered if people live on it, you know. But I suppose you’re too far away to see from here . . .”

“Why?”

“These men . . .”

“Are you a flic?”

Bellan nodded.

“A real one?”

Bellan pulled out his picture ID and badge. He didn’t know if Bidi could read. “It might be hard to read, but there’s my photo.”

“I can read. Monsieur Tulles says I’m very careful. Handle things just so. And in straight lines,” said Bidi. “Look, I put all the items in order: first by type, then by size, and then . . .”

“Bidi, I’m sure the policeman can see how good your work is,” interrupted Monsieur Tulles. He came up to Bidi, put his arm on his shoulder, smiled. “I’m so lucky to have you work here every day.”

“Ouai, after Madame died, you needed help.”

Bellan shuffled, felt excluded. And alone. Something radiated from these two. Something warm and caring that he wasn’t part of.

“I wondered, since your shop fronts the quai, if you’d seen men going back and forth?”

“They like feta cheese, pickles, and English soda crackers,”

Bidi said. He pointed to the next aisle. “Over there.”

Bidi’s watch alarm sounded. He turned abruptly. “I have to finish working. My job ends in five minutes.”

“Talk to the policeman, Bidi, it’s fine,” said Monsieur Tulles.

“But I haven’t finished my work . . .” said Bidi. His brow creased.

“The policeman needs information. And you are very observant, haven’t I told you so?”

Bidi’s face broke out in smiles. He looked with adoration at Monsieur Tulles. “You are a good man.” Bidi looked at Bellan. “Are you a good man?”

Bellan put his head down. Ashamed. “Not very often.”

“They are bad men. I know that.”

Bellan looked up. “How Bidi?”

“They hurt people.”

“Did you see them fight?”

“There was blood on their shirts. I said OMO worked best on stains.”

Customers came into the shop and Monsieur Tulles left to wait on them.

“One named Dragos has a ponytail and works at the Opéra,” said Bellan. “Know him?”

“I like the singing place. He paid me to bring food.”

“Aaah,” Bellan nodded. “So he wasn’t sick, then?”

Bidi shook his head. He scratched his muscular arm. “No food’s allowed backstage, but he showed me a secret way.”

Bellan’s eyes widened. Would Dragos Iliescu show this simpleminded boy a secret . . .? But Bidi wasn’t so simpleminded, Bellan grudgingly admitted to himself; it was more complicated. He pushed that out of his mind. Bidi seemed loyal, punctual, and a hard worker. That was how someone once referred to him, after his graduation from the police academy. Like a dog who responded to affection.

“Why did Dragos show you a secret way?”

“To bring his lunch. He didn’t like his bosses. He laughed at the big one and said he would show him.”

Bidi looked at his watch. “It’s time to go. Or I’ll be late. Can’t be late.”

“Will you show me?” asked Bellan, hesitant.

“No time. Later.”

Bidi stacked his last box, hung up his apron, slipped on his backpack, and was gone.

“Does he have an appointment?”

“He’s a bird watcher,” Monsieur Tulles nodded. “Every day at this time he watches the falcons nesting behind the Gare de Lyon clockface.”